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Forum:Cleaning enemy characters pages
I've noticed some inconsistent arrangement/differentiation with some character's lore and (or in some pages, the lack of) gameplay details. For reference, see the following few pages: * Shadow Broker * Matriarch Benezia * Saren Arterius * Kai Leng Taking Shadow Broker and Benezia's articles as examples, both have a substantial amount of lore and are also major adversaries you battle with. However, the Shadow Broker's ME2 DLC subsection is unwieldy and muddied with excessive gameplay info. As with Benezia's page; the first image you see of her is an adversary infobox and not a character infobox — similarly, it's a huge spoiler because you only battle her at a later stage in the Noveria mission. A few characters shares the same issue. The other inconsistency is her gameplay info is linked out to a walkthrough page unlike other adversaries pages, the only adversary page to do so (IIRC). On the other hand, characters like Saren and Kai Leng are curiously and surprisingly lacking any form of gameplay info (Saren is ME's final boss and there's no adversary infobox, tactics, strategy. Nada, zilch!). There are also few minor characters missing such info. However, placing an adversary infobox at the top will result in spoilers like the situation mentioned above. Adding gameplay info could possibly create a long list of details which are unrelated to the lore, adding to the clutter. So I'm proposing here is a two-fold: propose a cleanup method to resolve the inconsistencies in character articles and to identify which article need a clean-up (or a fill-up in some articles). For the first, here's two suggested solutions: 1. Split the article Articles of characters are to remain strictly for lore. Any gameplay info is to be split into another article with an (enemy) suffix. Sandbox example: Shadow Broker, Shadow Broker (enemy) Advantages *Less spoiler-y *Less clutter and a cleaner article, especially if gameplay info gets out of hand. Disadvantages *May require more work. *Characters with little to no lore and/or combat information, causing both articles to be bare. *Need two pages for a single character, possibly causing difficulity finding info from two different pages. 2. Rearrange the article Rearrange any combat and tactical related info into a subsection called Gameplay or Combat (for a lack of a better word). A character infobox should be used as the first visible image and the adversary infobox placed at the subsection instead. Sandbox example: Kai Leng, Matriarch Benezia, Balak Advantages *Less spoiler-y *May require less work. *Do not require two pages for a single character. Disadvantages *Doesn't quite solve the issue with excessive amount of gameplay info cluttering the page. *Inconsistent with other adversary pages. *Characters with little to no lore and/or combat information. --- As with both suggested solutions, the subjectiveness is drawing the line for articles which a clean-up should be applied. For reference, the following subsection shows a list of named adversaries, arranged by the amount of lore (loosely determined by the number of written info in the article). You may also realize that it is mostly due Personally, I was leaning towards splitting up the pages but I find some benefits in maintaining it but rearranging the articles instead. Also, the proposed clean-ups should be applied to character pages from "moderate" upwards to "substantial". The remaining pages will remain as it is. Named adversaries references Here's a list of named adversaries which have varying degrees of lore and gameplay information in the articles. Please note that this is by no means an exhaustive or definitive list. This is up for discussion too. (*) denotes characters with no adversary infobox and/or no gameplay info. *With substantial lore ::ME – Saren*, Benezia, Shadow Broker (also ME2) ::ME2 – Tela Vasir ::ME3 – Kai Leng*, Eva Core*, Jack, Morinth *With moderate lore ::ME – Balak (also ME3), Fist*, Kaira Stirling*, Alestia Iallis, Elanos Haliat*, Lord Darius, Julia, Dr. Saleon, Jax*, Helena Blake*, Captain Ventralis*, Charn ::ME2 – Jedore, Jaroth, Tarak, Gatatog Uvenk *Little to no lore ::ME – Tonn Actus, Dahlia Dantius, Doctor Droyas* ::ME2 – Captain Enyala, Captain Wasea, Captain Vorleon, Captain Narom, Captain Vorhess, Lieutenant Locke, Chief Roe, Chief Weyrloc Guld, Sergeant Boortis, Warden Kuril, Jentha, Morl, Garm, Kureck, Kalusk, Salamul Voting Please vote only once in both sections below. "Article implementation" means which method of of implementation should be taken for these articles. The "scope of implementation" means the range of articles that the implementation should cover (as listed above). ---- Article implementation Split the article Summary: Articles of characters are to remain strictly for lore. Any gameplay info is to be split into another article with an (enemy) suffix. Example: Shadow Broker, Shadow Broker (enemy) #Lancer1289 16:45, April 18, 2012 (UTC) #-- Commdor (Talk) 19:07, April 29, 2012 (UTC) #silverstrike 11:05, May 2, 2012 (UTC) # as we are already doing this--MaverikCH (talk) 17:16, October 15, 2012 (UTC) Rearrange the article Summary: Rearrange any gameplay info into a subsection called "Combat". A character infobox should be used as the first visible image and the adversary infobox placed at the subsection instead. Example: Kai Leng, Balak # # # ---- Scope of implementation Substantial lore # I still have some reservation regarding moderate lore - I think that it needs more definition, until then, I'm sticking with Substantial -- silverstrike 11:08, May 2, 2012 (UTC) # # Substantial, moderate lore #Lancer1289 16:46, April 18, 2012 (UTC) #-- Commdor (Talk) 19:07, April 29, 2012 (UTC) #--MaverikCH (talk) 17:15, October 15, 2012 (UTC) Substantial, moderate, little lore # # # ---- Comments Please don't be limited with my two proposed solutions. If the community has any better idea, please feel free to suggest. I would like to hear what are the community's feedback for this. — Teugene (Talk) 19:41, March 27, 2012 (UTC) Perhaps not the most helpful input but I really like the rearranging the articles idea, they work particularly well with the wonderful sandboxed examples you have provided, and I think it would benefit the Shadow Broker article in keeping the identity of the character spoiler-free up until the tactics heading. One thing to note, however, wouldn't Morinth and Jack need the inclusion of an enemy box given they can be enemies? I would certainly imagine they would either need a separate enemy article or an appropriate place in their already existing pages. The Illusive Man 20:14, March 27, 2012 (UTC) :I thought about those two characters and decided not to include them because they are essentially the same as a Banshee and a Phantom, only named differently. Legion on the hand... should probably be included. If only I can find a video of a fight against him. — Teugene (Talk) 01:12, March 28, 2012 (UTC) I think creating a combat section on the pages seems like a better idea, mainly for spoiler reasons. If someone who hasn't played ME2 goes to the Shadow Broker page, and at the very top of the page, above the spoiler warning, they see a redirect to 'Shadow Broker(Enemy)", thats a pretty big spoiler.--Legionwrex 03:47, March 28, 2012 (UTC) :I don't think it has to be a necessity for there to be a picture of the Shadow Broker at the top of the page should the rearrange option be taken. It can still maintain the general look it has, lore coming first, followed by a specific tactics heading where the image is then seen within the adversary template. The Illusive Man 03:54, March 28, 2012 (UTC) ::I never said it was, I didn't even mention the picture as a problem. Look at the Varren page, at the very top it redirect for "Varren(Enemy)", now picture that on the Shadow Broker, or Matriarch Benezias page.--Legionwrex 04:08, March 28, 2012 (UTC) :::Clearly I cannot read! Or misread. My apologies. Regardless, you make a good point. The Illusive Man 04:44, March 28, 2012 (UTC) ::::You have a point there and it's also an issue I thought about when suggesting this. The simplest possible way I could think of to solve this is to have the redirect under another subsection after the character's lore. I've edited the Shadow Broker sandbox page to reflect the draft idea. — Teugene (Talk) 05:15, March 28, 2012 (UTC) I'm of the opinion that neither method is particularly good; both have serious flaws that compound their presentation issues. I however think rearranging the pages is better than splitting the info into two pages, most obviously because it'll double our page count (and thus cache memory usage), and as Legionwrex stated above, the use of two pages can be considered pretty big spoilers depending on who sees them. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 04:19, March 28, 2012 (UTC) :Could you elaborate the flaws and the presentation issues? It'll be helpful to improve on the drafts later. :Also, I'm not sure doubling a page count is a disadvantage as it affects only about 20-30 pages. How does cache memory usage also affects the wiki? I'm not too familiar with the wiki technicalities to have this considered. — Teugene (Talk) 05:21, March 28, 2012 (UTC) Why not place tactics subsections in their appropriate plot points? For instance, you fight Kai Leng at two different points in Mass Effect 3, so why not put those seperate boss fight walkthroughs (with enemy stat tables) in the article when they occur? Something like this would pretty much cover all the issues raised by the project without unnecessarily adding to the page count, and would make it much more accessible to new users. Ctrl alt belief 10:33, March 28, 2012 (UTC) :The walkthroughs do not focus on stategy and tactical specifics for dealing with any particular enemy. Doing so may cause unnecessary clutter in the walkthroughs especially when a walkthrough has various enemies. Thus, those specifics are found in their respective pages. This will also be consistent with other adversary pages we have now. — Teugene (Talk) 11:46, March 28, 2012 (UTC) ::I would have to say that I'm preferring the separate article, rather than combining the two. Combining just looks cluttered, sloppy, and unprofessional. However, in the separate enemy articles, note that we don't use separate headings for class specific and general tactics, all that's used is bold text. Lancer1289 14:33, March 28, 2012 (UTC) This is definitely a good idea to address an issue that has gone unnoticed, but it's one where it seems there's no "silver bullet". No answer is going to be completely satisfactory. I somewhat prefer the second option, mainly because two separate articles for each adversary will create some issues in terms of user-friendliness and because, as you note, some of the articles for more minor foes would be rather threadbare. SpartHawg948 19:42, March 30, 2012 (UTC) Something just occurred to me: there's no need for tactics on named characters. The only time you're going to fight them is during missions, right? So why not just link those walkthrough pages at the beginning of paragraphs on that particular lore? Generic enemies need tactics sections because they show up in multiple missions, so it really would be clutter to include those notes on every walkthrough. But named characters' pages can be just lore, with possibly an infobox on stats but no tactics or walkthrough. If it's a walkthrough problem, put it in the walkthroughs. Ctrl alt belief 18:18, April 4, 2012 (UTC) :Are you suggesting something like the current Benezia's article where the tactics is linked out to the walkthrough? That could be one possible solution. — Teugene (Talk) 02:12, April 5, 2012 (UTC) Is this dead or going somewhere? If this is going forward, we probably should get it done before the lockdown ends in a few weeks. Lancer1289 21:18, April 16, 2012 (UTC) :I was thinking of going ahead with rearranging the article since it's probably the lesser hassle option. The suggestion to put tactics for adversaries into the walkthrough and linked to it from the character's page sounds like a better idea too but should only apply for characters with substantial lore as mentioned above. I'll get the ball rolling now. — Teugene (Talk) 04:16, April 17, 2012 (UTC) ::Sorry for not responding until now, I probably had the worst night of sleep I've had in a while. Anyway, I think for enemies with a large amount of lore, Saren, Benezia, Jack, a seperate article is needed. Other ones, not so much. Lancer1289 15:14, April 17, 2012 (UTC) Thanks for your vote Lancer. Though, I was hoping this would gather more community feedback since this is a substantial change. I will extend the voting period and postphone the implementation if this won't get reasonable amount of votes. — Teugene (Talk) 04:15, April 27, 2012 (UTC) :I didn't delve into your proposal too deep, but from initial reading, it seems that we should split or rearranging articles based on the amount of content - in most character pages, splitting will leave them bare. Do you have any example for the end result of what you propose (on an average character)? --silverstrike 14:24, April 29, 2012 (UTC) ::Various examples are linked above. And it would only strip out combat tactics, not lore. What it would do is create an "Lore" article, with the character background and story, and an "Enemy" article like Turret (enemy), with tactics, weapons, and that kind of information. I really hope this proposal is passed because it is creating too manh issues. Lancer1289 18:37, April 29, 2012 (UTC) :::Yup, some example links are as above. The purpose is for consistency and less spoiler-y for major characters. As for the characters that should be split, I listed down and group the characters according to different amount of lore they have above. The threadbare characters will probably be left as it is, since they are less significant in comparison with the major ones. — Teugene (Talk) 04:16, April 30, 2012 (UTC) ::::I support the split for characters with heavy lore, and some of the characters with moderate lore. The minimal lore and some with moderate lore could be rearranged (what is considered "moderate" needs to be clearer). I don't really understand the voting you laid out, so just tell me where to sign :P. --silverstrike 14:52, May 1, 2012 (UTC) :::::You'll want to sign in at "Split the article" under "Article Implementation" and "Substantial lore" under "Scope of Implementation". As for the definition of lore, refer to Named adversaries references section to see which articles falls into which category. 06:26, May 2, 2012 (UTC) ::::::Voted. If you could further define what is substantial (could not understand from your link reference), then I might change to also include moderate. --silverstrike 11:10, May 2, 2012 (UTC) :::::::The only definition is the length of content inside the articles. Admittedly, it's loosely based on personal estimation but it definitely can be refined further (which I'm looking at to do soon). — Teugene (Talk) 13:48, May 2, 2012 (UTC)